On a patch of desert out past Utah Lake there's a makeshift rifle range — nothing fancy, just targets made of things people don't have any use for anymore. Old buckets and toys and Mason jars.
And the occasional computer monitor.
On a recent Saturday, bits of plastic and circuit board lay scattered on the ground, a reminder of how redundant and problematic America's old computers have become. Shooting at computers is just one answer to a question that is now dawning on a nation of computer owners: How do we get rid of the darn things once we've outgrown them?
"Computers are like bananas," is the analogy Jim Henderson, director of instructional technology at the Granite School District, likes to use. "They only last so long. They depreciate faster than cars." Even Moore's Law ("The processing speed of new computer doubles every 12 to 18 months") is proving too modest a prediction of the rate at which computers suddenly seem too slow to use.
The National Safety Council estimates that 300 million computers will become obsolete between now and 2002, as Americans replace old models with newer, faster ones (and as the cost of buying a new computer is now only slightly higher than repairing an old one). The problem of what to do with all those old computers may be even more urgent in Utah, where our rate of computer ownership (66.1 percent) is higher than any other state.
In Utah, most old personal computers apparently either end up in the landfill or are gathering dust in people's closets and basements. Recycling efforts are limited. The United Way, which welcomes the donation of old computers, only receives about one a month. The state's "computers for schools" program is successful, but private donations have dropped off.
Utah is hardly on the cutting edge when it comes to dealing with electronics junk. It's about average, says Whitney Trulove-Cranor, recycling coordinator for the Environmental Protection Agency's Region VIII. At the progressive end of the spectrum is Massachusetts, which last spring instituted the nation's first ban on the dumping of computer screens and TV sets into the state's landfills.
Computers that end up in landfills not only take up space and waste parts and metals that could be reused or recycled, but also may be harming the environment. Color computer monitors contain lead in their cathode ray tubes (the lead prevents the monitor from zapping its users with radiation). Tests show that cathode ray tubes "contain enough lead to make them exceed standards for hazardous waste," says Trulove-Cranor. Other computer components contain cadmium, mercury and chromium that may leach into the groundwater (although not enough in each individual component to classify them as hazardous waste). "The concern we have at EPA is the sheer quantity of computers that are becoming obsolete," she says.
Lead and other metals aren't the only problems, says Ted Smith, executive director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition in San Jose, Calif. "There are materials in the plastics that are really very toxic," he says. "All of the plastics now used in the computer housings contain brominated flame retardants, which are . . . thought to be endocrine disrupters." This is particularly a problem when old computers are burned.
Landfills that have liners are better than landfills that don't, Smith says, "but the problem is that all landfills leak eventually, and when you put something in a landfill, it's forever." Materials that leak can get into the groundwater, although Utah at least has the advantage of being arid, "so it generates less leachate," notes Rusty Lundberg of the state's division of solid and hazardous waste.
The Salt Lake County Health Department does not take computers when it conducts household hazardous waste days, says Dorothy Adams, a supervisor in the hazardous-waste department. "If we had an endless budget, we would. But computers are not identified as the worst-case scenario."
Early next year, the EPA will propose adding cathode ray tubes to its list of "universal waste" products, a less-regulated category of hazardous waste that includes batteries, thermostats and mercury-containing lights, says Trulove-Cranor. The hope is that, free of some of the regulatory roadblocks, businesses will try harder to recycle their electronics.
But businesses that "generate" less than 220 pounds of electronics hazardous waste are still allowed to throw their electronics junk away, unless the state prohibits it (Colorado does, but Utah doesn't). Since a cathode ray tube on a typical 17-inch monitor only weighs a pound and a half, that's quite a few computers that can legally be dumped. And businesses that generate more than that may not know the rules or may be disregarding them, says Trulove-Cranor. "We're not out there checking and enforcing," she admits.
Households are not covered by federal hazardous-waste regulations, which means that, unless those households are in Massachusetts, they can throw their old computers in the garbage.
Paul Johnson, out shopping at CompUSA on a recent afternoon, is perhaps a typical computer owner. He has two old computers shoved to the side of his desk at home — an 8-year-old Apple and an IBM that is 10 or 15 years old. He doesn't want to throw them away, he said, because they cost so much to buy. If he can't sell them, he'll try to give them away, he said, but he won't pay somebody to recycle them.
The problem with this scenario is that the only computer recycler in the state charges $10 to take old monochrome computers — to cover the cost of sending the cathode ray tube out of state to have it melted down and made into a new glass product. There are no smelters in Utah that handle cathode ray tubes.
Lucency Corp. will pay for color monitors ($3) and for printers, copiers, keyboards, etc. Mostly, though, says Lucency administrator Dan Harris, it is larger companies that are turning in electronics to be recycled, and most of these are from out of state. Lucency gets about three or four computers a month from individuals.
It's mostly the big companies that are recycling their computers, he says. "For their PR they want to be able to say 'we recycle.' "
Utah's only municipally run site to collect recyclable electronics junk is in Logan. The program has had a hiatus after the recycling company the city had contracted with went out of business, but Logan is currently negotiating with another company.
"I was surprised people were throwing away so much," says Jill Galloway, Logan's waste reduction crew chief. Nationally, it's estimated that only 11 percent of old computers are recycled, according to the National Safety Council.
Even better than recycling is re-use, says Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. But giving a computer away isn't always easy. The Salvation Army will take any old computer but has been known to turn them away if they already have too many on hand.
The state's "computers for schools" program was working well when state money was allocated, says Vicky Dahn, coordinator of instructional technology for the State Office of Education. The program sends donated old computers to the state prison in Gunnison, where they are refurbished and upgraded by prisoners, then sold to schools around the state. Now that there are no state subsidies for the program, though, the prison is forced to charge more for the computers. In addition, since the state is no longer subsidizing the program, the computers are no longer technically a donation — which means schools that buy them violate contracts they have with computer vendors.
Schools and school districts have gotten pickier about the kinds of old computers they're willing to take. "In the past we would take about anything," says Scott Whipple of the Granite Education Foundation. "But we want the kids to learn on up-to-date stuff. And we've seen some dinosaurs come in. We don't like to say 'No,' but if it's really ancient, we don't have time or people to put them together, and some parts aren't available."
"The problem is that if people can't use the computers at home, the schools probably can't either," says Melinda Colton, spokesperson for the Jordan School District.
There's one more solution, says Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition: Make computer manufacturers take back old computers. It's called "extended producer responsibility," he says, and it's "the rule of the game now" in Europe.
"In the future," says Smith, "we may pay a deposit when we buy a computer, like the deposit on bottles." If the ball was in the computer industry's court, says Smith, "we'd see products that are more efficiently produced, easier to upgrade, and much more environmentally friendly."
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com